"Say it ain't so ...."

Selection of beers of Chile and one from Peru, image taken while in Parque Pumalin, Chile, 2017.

Pollution continues to be a serious environmental problem, and the current administration in control of the US government continues to attack environmental regulations and make the situation worse.  This is bad for the environment, and, bad for us as well.  And now, wherever we look, we find contaminants, including in beer.  This is not good.  A recently published study (see below, Kosuth et al. 2018) has found that microplastics are a common contaminant in beer, found in all samples tested.  The study, completed by Kosuth et al. (2018) sampled tap water (from global sources), domestic beer, and sea salt (internationally sourced but sold in the US), looking for microplastic contaminants.  And the results are disquieting.  They found that 81% of all tap water samples contained microplastics, and all beer and sea salt samples were found to contain microplastics as well.  The twelve beers sampled were all domestic, and all used municipal water taken from one of five of the Great Lakes in the US.  The worst of the beer sampled used water from Lake Michigan, and it contained 16 particles per liter.  Most of the microfiber contaminants were tiny fibers, and it looks like they are everywhere.  Looks like we are going to have to filter our beer.  And, imagine what might be in wine.  Plastics are everywhere, in our forests, on our beaches, in the oceans, in our rivers and lakes, and now, in much of what we drink.  I have included a copy of the paper in case you want, need, more information.
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kosuthetal18anthropogeniccontaminationtapwaterbeerseasalt.pdf
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